Poor leadership behind America’s war on terror

I am pleased that Sen. Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., is leaving the Senate. His June 11 Tribune commentary, “We have a duty to defend America,” demonstrated that his simplistic thinking provides poor representation for Colorado.

First, his suggestion that many Americans have “forgotten that we are at war” ignores an important fact. No war has been declared. Should Campbell read the Constitution, he would find that he abdicated his constitutional responsibility to declare war. Instead, Campbell and far too many others voted to give President Bush the authority to use the military at his discretion. Sen. Campbell anxiously ignored the Constitution he was sworn to uphold.

Now, we are waging a hurriedly thought-out, poorly planned military action. We’re doing so at the urging of a few in the administration who simply wanted to establish a pro-American puppet “democracy” in the Middle East, where such an ideology has never been embraced. We invaded Iraq to topple a leader whose power we helped to solidify 20 years ago. And now we feign surprise that we encounter difficulties?

Second, Campbell states: “In America, we invite diversity and are all better for it. In some Middle East nations, you are besieged, bombed,or beheaded for your diversity.” Yet we now besiege and bomb Iraq because the ideology of many Iraqis does not conform to the ideology of the U.S. government. How does this embrace diversity?

Campbell calls terrorists “cowards who hide behind masks and attack the innocent.” Are we any better when hiding behind advanced tactical weaponry and bombing the innocent from above? Yes, beheading someone is horrible. But what of raping, sodomizing and humiliating prisoners through twisted interpretations of what is “torture” under the Geneva Conventions? What of our bombings in Iraq, resulting in tens of thousands of civilian deaths? How many men, women and children have we beheaded from afar?

Finally, Campbell suggests that to be a “9/11 American” is to wholly support Bush’s actions in Iraq and the “war on terror.” Yet the administration is reliably deceitful when it comes to Iraq. Our actions were consistently based on “wrong” information (lies). First, Iraq didn’t try to get uranium from Niger. Second, the intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was horribly flawed (manipulated). Third, Saddam Hussein admittedly didn’t have anything to do with 9/11. Then, we were more recently told that the administration’s earlier claims — that the war on terror had resulted in a dramatic decline in the number of world-wide terrorist incidents — were, in fact, “mistaken.” The number of terrorist incidents during our war on terror has actually risen sharply.

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I don’t believe that in order to be a proud 9/11 American, I must support a foreign policy rooted in mistakes and outright lies. I am insulted at Campbell’s suggestion that, if I question the motives of our secretive and deceitful administration, I am a “9/10 American in denial.”

I am suspicious of a fear-mongering administration seriously compromised by conflicts of interest in its Middle East policy thinking (i.e., Cheney-Halliburton, Bush-Carlisle Group-Military/Industrial, James Baker-Saudi Arabian oil interests, etc.). To label me a 9/10 American in denial because I don’t buy the administration’s propaganda is an ignorant stance in itself.

I, like Campbell, know that more attacks are coming. Unless we surrender all of our freedoms, they’re inevitable in this world. However, it is certainly possible that further attacks will occur because of our present course, not in spite of it.

Thankfully, Sen. Campbell is leaving office. Defending America through poorly planned policies that inspire terrorism is not my kind of defense. Betrayal of the Constitution is not my kind of leadership.

Now I wish we could find somebody better. I’m not holding my breath.

Dan Jones of Greeley is an attorney and a local business operations manager. He says he is fed up with the Republicrats and is distinctly not a liberal.